Endowment

Support for Endowment

Elon’s endowment supports the people, programs and facilities of the university in perpetuity. Through investment earnings and charitable gifts, Elon seeks to grow its endowment to support scholarships for students, professorships and other opportunities to develop excellent faculty, new initiatives and maintenance of outstanding facilities.

To Support Students

Among Elon’s top endowment priorities is to expand and deepen support for student scholarships, including need- and talent-based scholarships. Opening Elon’s doors to students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences—including first-generation college students—enriches the entire campus community and enables remarkable young men and women to pursue their dreams.

To Name Scholarships (minimum funding levels):

Odyssey Program Scholarships: $500,000

Need-based, Athletic, and other Talent-based Scholarships: $100,000

Graduate School Scholarships: $100,000

International Student Scholarships: $100,000

Fellows Scholarships: $100,000

To Support Faculty

Elon’s brand of engaged learning depends on time-intensive interactions between students and faculty. The university seeks to provide faculty with the gift of time to conduct research, often with students, to perform and to create new courses and programs. These activities allow faculty to stay current in their fields and become even better educators and mentors.

To meet this goal, Elon seeks to create additional endowed professorships and other faculty development funds. Professorships are a powerful way for colleges and universities to attract outstanding faculty because they include enhanced funding for salaries, research and other professional development activities.

To Name Professorships (minimum funding levels):

Distinguished University Professorship: $2,000,000. This award is bestowed, on occasion, to full professors who have made distinguished contributions to teaching, scholarship and the Elon community.

To Support Engaged Learning

The Elon Experiences form the foundation of the university’s renowned engaged learning program. These five transformative opportunities—study abroad, service learning, internships, undergraduate research and leadership—enable students to put their learning into action and see the impact they can have on the world.

Elon Experiences Fund

These funds support a student’s participation in one of the five Elon Experiences. The funding minimum for an engagement experience fund is $50,000.

Study Abroad

Elon sends more undergraduates to study abroad (more than 70 percent) than any other master’s-level school in the nation. The Elon Commitment strategic plan, which will guide the university through 2020, calls on Elon to provide 100 percent access to study abroad, regardless of financial circumstance. Enhanced scholarship support is vital to meeting this goal.

Undergraduate Research

Each year hundreds of students work closely with faculty mentors to develop research projects based on their areas of interest. These experiences are invaluable preparation for graduate study and professional careers. Additional funds will expand the number and enhance the quality of projects and enable student-faculty teams to present their research at national and international conferences.

Internships, Service Learning and Leadership Opportunities

About 80 percent of students complete internships and service experiences during their Elon careers. With greater support, more students could participate in these valuable opportunities at home or abroad and in cities where housing and living costs are high. Approximately one-third of all students hold at least one leadership position in the more than 190 campus organizations and programs. Additional endowment funding would expand leadership opportunities for students, preparing them for professional and personal success.

The Elon Academy

Endowment support also is needed for The Elon Academy, an academic enrichment and college-access program that serves Alamance County, N.C., high school students with financial need or no family history of attending college. Academy scholars enroll as rising sophomores and commit to a three-year program that combines three intensive four-week summer residential experiences at Elon with a variety of academic activities throughout the school year. Increased annual and endowment funding are needed since academy scholars do not pay tuition to attend.

Since opening in 2007, The Elon Academy has inspired and empowered dozens of high school students to attend four-year colleges or universities, including Elon, and to go on to assume leadership roles in their communities.